January 18, 2006

Hot cocoa drink

A cup of hot cocoa drink has been my favorite substitutes for a regular dose of tea or coffee at all times.

Uses of cocoa are numerous. It may be used in cakes, creams, drinks, toppings. Besides its use as a food, science has discovered that cocoa is beneficial for health. Cocoa has nearly twice the anti-cancer antioxidant of red wine, and up to three times those found in green tea. Read more at wiki here.

Method: Mix together the cocoa and salt with a tablespoon of water and blend to a smooth paste. Dilute it with the cold water. Boil for 3 minutes stirring once in a while. Pour in the milk and bring to boil just once. Remove from the heat, add sugar, and keep it covered for 3 minutes before serving. Serve hot and enjoy!

6 Comments:

VKN, Your recipes are excellent. I read them as you post and try to make some of the simple ones. Well, all your recipes are simple. but, i'm not exactly very active.I just wanted to point out here that "unprocessed cocoa" is the one that has the maximum benefits (flavanoids, are retained intact). Dark chocolates has about 30% of the benefits preserved, but milk chocolates (and commercial drink mixes) offers no health benefits at all, from what i read. I hear some of the commercial choc makers are trying to retain the flavanoids while improving the taste and scientists are talking about synthesizing it to treat diabetes, etc, but that might be a few years down the lane. Till then, we need to develop a taste for dark chocolate and ways to use unprocessed cocoa :)

Here are a couple of interesting links:http://www.cocoapro.com/process/articles/not_equal.jsphttp://www.masterfoodsnews.com/products_detail.asp?prodId=266&brandID=126

Thank you Babble. Interesting information on unprocessed cocoa and thank you for the links.

We have an organic farm at our native place where we used to powder dried cocoas plucking it straight from the trees and used to make all cocoa dishes using those powders. How do you use your unprocessed cocoas? I'm just curious to know.

VKN, Thanks for your response. I'm not familiar with any recipes and I look to you for recipes:) Also, i'm not from a place where they grow cocoa and the only form i've seen so far is the hot chocolate and chocolates. However, here is a pointer that might help:http://www.joyofbaking.com/cocoa.htmlThe natural unsweetened cocoa is what i mentioned earlier...I'm sure there are ways to make drinks out of unprocessed cocoa and i see a few companies in hawaii have found ways to create products out of unprocessed cocoa that are not bitter.for starters, i eat extra dark chocs these days

There is no hot chocolate in the world which is better than Italian hot chocolate. Its easy to make it at home and just like drinking liquid chocolate. I found hot chocolate sparrow in MA the best. I found a chocolate that works for ma and isn't too sweet.